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"I didn't get it. I'm not in that movie because I got so scared when I walked in the room," she recalled of auditioning for the 1991 Martin Scorsese film, "Cape Fear."
Reese Witherspoon is taking a look back at one of her "very first" auditions as a teenager, in which she had to read lines opposite Oscar winner Robert De Niro.
While appearing on Thursday's episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" the actress recalled auditioning for the 1991 Martin Scorsese film, "Cape Fear," starring De Niro, when she was 14. According to Witherspoon, the audition was an epic fail from the beginning as she had no idea who De Niro was at the time.
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View Story"One of the very first auditions I ever had was with Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese for a movie called 'Cape Fear,'" Witherspoon, 46, said. "I didn't get it. I'm not in that movie because I got so scared when I walked in the room."
"I didn't know who Robert De Niro was, so I was standing outside talking to the receptionist," she continued. "She was like, 'You know he's the most important actor of our time, right?'"
The "Legally Blonde" star said she became very nervous after her conversation with the receptionist.
"I was 14. I'd never seen 'Goodfellas.' I'd never seen 'The Godfather,'" she explained. "So it totally got on my nerves."
Witherspoon shared that she struggled with a specific "word" while reading lines during the audition. "And [De Niro] had to finish the lines for me," she said, throwing a hand over her face as she recalled the memory.
The "Big Little Lies" star went on to share that she auditioned for De Niro again 10 years later, revealing that the latter did not forget how she "bricked" her "Cape Fear" audition.
"I thought, 'He's never gonna remember that I bricked that audition,'" Witherspoon recalled. "And he was like, 'I remember you.' I was like, 'Me?' He's like, 'Oh yeah. You're the one who couldn't say the word.'"
"I was like, 'Oh, my God! This is so bad!'" she said.
Meanwhile, also during the interview, Witherspoon opened up about an experience working with another Oscar-winning actor: Denzel Washington.
The "Your Place or Mine" actress reminisced about her days as an intern on the set of one of Washington's movies back in 1995, recalling a hilarious story that involved Washington's Porsche.
Click here to see what went down!
